#19 A world without borders
On building bridges, not walls, and a matter of morality.
Migration is as old as humanity, but nation-states are much more recent. The idea of a borderless world has been explored before, at least on a theoretical level, but a possible implementation may seem, for some, chaotic, and a little far-fetched. Leah Cowan is not the first one to advocate for border abolition, but she does so in a comprehensive and accessible manner in her book, “Border Nation: A Story of Migration”. She questions the origins of borders with their colonialism implications, the use of anti-migrant language in mainstream media and political discourse, as well as the immigration practices, past and present, with a focus on the UK.
“Borders are indisputably sites of violence. Borders create citizens and non-citizens, ‘aliens’ and nationals, undocumented people and sans papiers, ‘foreigners’ and expats. Borders segregate, categorise and dehumanise us.”
Cowan argues the case for open borders from a moral/ human rights perspective, and pushes for some sort of resistance. Of course, freedom of movement is a basic human right, so this begs the question: should our freedom of movement be restricted by arbitrary political and economic boundaries, given we don’t get to choose where we’re born? As a passport holder, it’s more difficult to see the bigger picture, or as a matter of fact, the real picture. These are the invisible borders.
“If you have never felt the surveilling eye and iron fist of borders, it does not mean borders are not violent weapons; it means that your privilege enables you to circumnavigate the gleaming edge of their blade.”
Many do these crossings out of necessity – extreme poverty, wars, natural hazards – otherwise, why would they risk their lives for it? There has been a significant spike this year in attempted crossings of the central Mediterranean, one of the deadliest migration routes in the world. The same goes for the number of migrants crossing the English Channel to Britain – so far, the record of daily arrivals on small boats stands at 482. Immigrants are not the problem; borders are.
“Immigration is the greatest anti-poverty programme ever devised.” – Alex Tabarrok, The Case for Getting Rid of Borders – Completely, Atlantic
Cowan also explores one of the biggest immigration scandals of the decade that started with the “hostile environment” policy. This has led to thousands of law-abiding people of the Windrush generation being classified as illegal immigrants, with many removed from the country, and many more losing their homes and their jobs. The Guardian journalist, Amelia Gentleman, wrote more extensively about this in her book, “The Windrush Betrayal: Exposing the Hostile Environment.”
But it doesn’t have to be as radical as that. In the end, borders do affect us all. Let’s take the example of the “Right to Rent” check. The 2014 Immigration Act “puts legal duties on landlords, bank managers, doctors, members of the clergy and more to check our immigration status and if they see fit, deny access to services.”
And let’s not forget that the anti-immigrant sentiment and complicity for borders are heightened by mainstream media and political discourse. Perhaps the most striking example is the coverage of the 2015 refugee crisis. The PM at the time, David Cameron, described migrants in Calais as a “swarm of people” trying to reach Britain. The reality TV start and far-right commentator, Katie Hopkins, compared migrants to “cockroaches” and “feral humans,” suggesting using gunships to stop them from crossing the Mediterranean. This dehumanising drive was found in the story of Shamima Begum, the east London girl who travelled to Syria, aged 15, and married an IS fighter from the Netherlands. The media catalogued her as an extremist and “ISIS bride” perpetuating the narrative of depriving her of her British citizenship.
“Borders are loaded with so much meaning because, beyond the practical components of barbed wire, fencing, bricks and checkpoints; they exist within minds and attitudes. They also tell stories about power and freedom. When we experience a border, it asks us questions: where are you really from? How long will you stay? How much money do you have? Who will you bring with you?”
Steve Taylor, a senior lecturer in psychology, says that our insecurities when it comes to nationalism, status, and success could be associated with the psychological theory of “terror management.” People cling to labels of identity, yet we’re not as different as we’d like to think. Taylor suggests taking a more collective approach since most of our problems affect us collectively ( i.e the pandemic, climate change etc) and consequently, have no borders.
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I’ll leave it here for now so you can go and pick up Cowan’s book and discover more by yourselves. I’m well aware that I haven’t presented both sides of the story, yet she takes care to dismantle the myths and concerns one might have against a borderless world (the economic sustainability or the security issue, among others). My takeaway from this book is that fear makes us fall into bigotry, racism and bullying. The fear of having taken away what is “ours,” and the fear of “others.”
👉 What’s your take on a bordless world? Let me know in a comment or reply to this email.
On today’s issue: the latest literary drama (oh, I love these!), a belated happy Book Lovers Day, women at the front line in Libya, news on Picasso painting going up for auction, and more.
Happy reading, happy learning,
Teodora x
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🥁 📚 The latest in the literary world
Kate Clanchy’s Orwell Prize-winning book, “Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me,” has been heavily criticised after accusations of “racialised stereotypes” when portraying Black and autistic young people. 😱 Here’s what a Goodreads reviewer says: “Firstly, Kate Clanchy describes young people of colour as racist stereotypes. She describes students as ‘so Afghan’, Black young people with ‘chocolate skin’, others with ‘slanted eyes’, ‘almond-shaped eyes,’ an ‘African voice’ or a ‘Jewish nose’. She calls one young person ‘African Jonathon’. Clanchy's viewpoints on young people of colour are bigoted, and I find it uncomfortable that she is profiting from their life stories as a middle-class white woman.” 🤨 Clanchy has publicly apologised (via Twitter, of course!) and is now rewriting sections of the book. The drama doesn’t end here, I’m afraid! “Publishing must do better,” argue more than 950 figures from the book industry in an open letter, after authors get abuse too over Clanchy criticism. 😅
How should we talk about sex? 💋 💘 Do we need to rethink sex as a political phenomenon? Philosopher Amia Srinivasan certainly thinks so. “The Right to Sex” will examine the relationship between pornography and freedom, rape and racial injustice, punishment and accountability, pleasure and power, and so much more. “This is not a feel-good read that pats you on the back for doing the bare minimum for the sisterhood,” Srinivasan says in an interview with Vogue. I, for one, am intrigued. 🤔 The book is out on August 19.
Author Anthony Horowitz has won the Best Mystery of the Decade award by Honkaku Mystery Writers Club for “The Word is Murder,” making him the most-decorated foreign crime author in Japanese history, with 16 literary awards in total. 🕵️♂️ 🔍 In a recent interview with the New Statesman, Horowitz explains the motivation behind murder mystery writing. It involves…sushi? “If I’m writing a murder mystery and you’re about to get killed, I will describe carefully the sushi, so when on page 47 you pick the wrong one and keel over, that’s been seeded in. But if I don’t know anything, if I’m writing this scene and I don’t know when, why or even if you’re going to get killed, how do I know what to describe?” 🍣 🥢
Tom Daley has become the first British diver to win four Olympic medals, but this is not the only thing the general public will remember him for. 🏅It’s obviously his knitting hobby that has taken the Tokyo Olympics by storm and warmed everybody’s hearts. 🧶 Good, because now you can go and pre-order Daley’s memoir, “Coming Up for Air: What I Learned from Sport, Fame and Fatherhood,” which will be released by Harper Collins, October, 14. 🏊♂️
BONUS: This Monday (09/08) was National Book Lovers Day, so my dear bibliophiles, hope you treated yourselves to a new book! 📚 ✨The average British person owns more than 50 books, says YouGov, yet when it comes to organising them on bookshelves, more often than not, chaos leads the way! My OCD can’t seem to be able to fathom this. 😖
🎧 📰 👀 My media diet this week
“I didn’t know how to write about my sister’s death—so I had AI do it for me.” An absolutely stunning essay from Believer Mag about an author’s ‘collaboration’ with an AI machine that could predict the words that should come next. ✍️ 🤖
This episode (“Women at the front line”) from Libya Matters. Why listen to it? A look at the role of women in the 2011 uprising and how the landscape for women has developed since, including their ability to participate freely and meaningfully in public and political life. 🙏
“Electrifying Sierra Leone,” an episode from the Business Daily podcast by BBC World Service. Why listen to it? This is the story of a teenager who used kinetic energy change the lives of hundreds of people in Sierra Leone, and why having more light often means more hours to earn money, in a country where economic success lags behind its neighbours. 💡
📌 Random news in brief
A group of Marseille workers turned a McDonald’s into a foodbank. 🍔 🍟
This photo essay on male intimacy in South Korea has helped photographer Lindsay Ryklief come to terms with his own identity. 📸 🇰🇷
Selfridges has launched a rental boutique platform for wedding outfits – Resellfridges – aiming to celebrate weddings in a “more earth-conscious way.” 👰 🤵
Some 11 Picasso paintings and works will go up for auction in October. Five of these paintings have a combined worth estimated at $100 million. 👨🎨 💰 🤯
Absolutely freaking love your Newsletter and the format!!!
I'd love to see a world without borders - they're just lines on a map created by the wealthy and powerful to rule over us. However, I don't trust humanity to just remove borders and live happily. We'd invent another way to fuck it up. We always do.